page_title: Subdivisions of Polish territories during World War II
section_title: Creation of General Government
hierarchical_section_title: Subdivisions of Polish territories during World War II / German zone (1939–1945) / Creation of General Government
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the administrative areas of the General Government
context_page_description: Subdivision of Polish territories during World War II can be divided into several phases, when territories of the Second Polish Republic were administered first by Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, then in their entirety by Nazi Germany and finally by the Soviet Union again. Starting with the reform of 1946, the administrative division was returned to Poland.
  After Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland in 1939, following their invasion, most of the ethnically Polish territory ended up under German control while the areas annexed by the Soviet union was ethnically diverse peoples with the territory being divided into several areas some of which had a significant non-Polish majority, many of whom felt alienated in the interwar Poland and welcomed the Soviets. Nonetheless Poles composed the largest single ethnic group on the territories annexed by the Soviets.
context_section_description: The remaining block of territory was placed under a German administration called the General Government (in German Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete), with its capital at Kraków. The General Government was subdivided into four districts, Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, and Kraków (Distrikt Krakau).
  A German lawyer and prominent Nazi, Hans Frank, was appointed "Governor-General of the occupied Polish territories" on 26 October 1939. Frank oversaw the segregation of the Jews into Nazi ghettos in the larger cities, particularly Warsaw, and the use of Polish civilians as forced and slave labour in German war industries.
caption: Administrative map of the General Government, August 1941
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